Support, opposition, questions and concerns
The Wednesday (May 1) meeting of the Cold Spring Village Board was devoted almost entirely to residents’ comments on the Hudson Valley Fjord Trail, especially in light of two HHFT information sessions in March and April on alternative routes for a planned segment between Cold Spring and Breakneck Ridge.
Before receiving public comments, Mayor Kathleen Foley emphasized the meeting was “not a referendum” on the proposed 7.5-mile trail and that the critical time for the community’s input will be after a Draft General Environmental Impact Statement is released in June. New York State parks is the lead agency in that environmental review.
“That’s when your comments will have the greatest and most direct impact,” she said, noting that the Village Board has no approval role in the project and is limited to “advocacy toward the outcome and impact mitigation,” within Cold Spring.
Foley said while the Village Board has not taken a position, she, Nelsonville Mayor Chris Winward, and Philipstown Supervisor John Van Tassel recently issued a statement opposing a trailhead in Cold Spring, instead advocating “residentially scaled” paths and sidewalks to an entrance north of the village.
“The Village Board isn’t simply for or against the trail,” Foley said. “We as trustees have different opinions, just like the people we represent,” a statement borne out during the public comments.
By the time about 30 community members had their say, the only consensus that emerged was a lack of consensus.
Here is a sampling of comments, edited for brevity:
Malachy Labrie-Cleary: “I’m a huge supporter of the Fjord Trail beginning at Dockside. It’s not a good idea to start at Little Stony Point. People will still come to Cold Spring and walk or bike along Route 9D and Fair Street.”
Gretchen Dykstra: “There are many reasons to be concerned, particularly the public-private partnership. Private foundations don’t have to adhere to transparency rules. A government entity working with a private organization can hide behind the lack of transparency. We’re told Scenic Hudson doesn’t have the right to vote down anything HHFT proposes. We the public, are confused about who will actually run the trail and how much it will cost.”
Michael Guillorn: “I firmly believe starting HHFT at Dockside is the most viable option to resolve pedestrian safety issues on Fair Street.”
Kevin McClary: “The infrastructure isn’t here to handle current visitors. HHFT wants to build a trail that will alleviate a lot of the issues. Some are against compromise, anything that includes a trail. We need more discussion between the groups that are for and against.”
Tom Impellitiere: “Starting at Dockside would be an absolute nightmare for Cold Spring. I’m not opposed if it starts north of Little Stony Point. It’s important we hear from the Planning Board.”
Tara Vamos: “It’s essential for people to be able to bike or walk to Beacon and back. It would be a huge plus for the village. And it’s an asset to have a trail abutting your house; property values go up.”
Dave Merandy: “The major flaw in the route analysis is it uses Scenic Hudson’s designs, not the 2007 community-backed trail, a simple trail for safety along Route 9D. A 10- to 15-foot-wide trail limits where you can put it; a narrower trail provides options. MTA’s new roadmap for mitigating against climate change and rising sea levels calls for a lot of construction. Tracks have already flooded. Will HHFT be taken down at great expense to taxpayers if it prevents Metro-North construction?”
Henry Feldman: “Routes other than Dockside to Little Stony Point aren’t of interest to HHFT due to the ADA [Americans With Disabilities Act] requirements. But it’s quite possible we’re discussing something that can’t happen. Will Metro-North say, “We want access to the tracks from the river, but HHFT blocks it”? Has HHFT even gotten an OK from Metro-North? My concern isn’t for or against, but whether we’re engaging in a giant waste of time.”
Susan Peehl: “I’ve seen traffic and visitation to Cold Spring go up-up-up and was surprised at the April HHFT session that their consultant had found it trending down. That was strange. I live on Fair Street and don’t have a problem with hikers using it. We don’t need a starting point at Dockside.”
Shelley Gilbert: “It’s a complex problem but I go back to what we were trying to solve initially: garbage, lack of bathrooms, traffic including parking and safe sidewalks along Fair Street to get hikers to the parks. Why are we talking about a massive project without addressing these smaller, but vital problems? If we’re going to talk big, make Metro-North Railroad a rail-trail and move the trains to Route 9. That’s Eisenhower-era thinking; climate change will demand billions of dollars.”
As many as 45 people attended the meeting via Zoom, along with a full house at Village Hall. The meeting video is below.
Mike, thanks as always for your balanced reporting!
I also made comments at the meeting not included above, but possibly of some merit, and not formed in a vacuum. I said that: it is not HHFT’s bailiwick to feign savior to Village infrastructural problems that a Dockside “trailhead” will actually exacerbate – not remediate. Success of the trail has an inverse relationship with the village’s: if it draws more crowds as it is intended to do, it will be an HHFT success, yet necessarily will compound the misery of traffic and crowding on Main, Fair, 9D, and Dockside: more, is not less. If it fails, it will be to the benefit of the village by obviating the prospective traffic the developer hopes to draw. In either case, HHFT’s crystal ball argument that a Dockside trailhead would somehow decrease traffic on 9D and Fair St. is based on false premises and assumptions that have no basis in fact. I believe those are pipe-dream outcomes.
I am in favor of the Fjord Trail, but it is well past time for HHFT to outline specifically its proposal on how the Dockside trailhead would function.
With all its public outreach, HHFT has shown virtually every other aspect of the trail in great detail, but when it comes to Dockside it has only mentioned the possibility of timed entry and early morning entry for cyclists. It’s no wonder elected officials are throwing in the towel and sent a letter in opposition to a Dockside trailhead. Macro projections of hundreds of thousands of visitors over the year don’t add clarity.
HHFT needs to show what happens when a train from New York City arrives and hundreds of people show up at one time wanting to go on the Fjord Trail. How long will it take the Dockside trailhead to absorb those numbers before the next train arrives? It might be useful if HHFT projected how many people who enter Cold Spring via the Dockside trailhead will arrive at one of the other Fjord Trail entry points. This is a new stream of visitors arriving into the village.
It also needs to show how a 10-foot-wide boardwalk at Dockside can handle these numbers with people moving in both directions at different rates of speed. You need to show how cyclists traveling 2 to 5 times faster coexist with hikers and families with wheelchairs or strollers. These are the types of questions that need answering to have any sense of whether Dockside is viable.
I spent 15 years running the public-tour program at West Point and this situation is no different than figuring out how many buses and people can go through the Chapel at one time, be at Trophy Point or get through security at one time. They’re different numbers but the exercise is the same. It isn’t sexy and doesn’t lend itself to PowerPoint presentations and artist renditions, but HHFT has had 10 years to think about this. Until the actual operational plan is presented, HHFT is asking all of us to accept on faith that Dockside will work. This strategy has only solidified opposition, not won converts.